In the early ‘70s when we were in elementary school, we used to be fascinated by the sights of soldiers, naval officers and air-force men primarily because of their immaculate uniforms. But we were also impressed by their ramrod-straight physical bearing such that even if it was raining cats and dogs, the soldier standing guard over an object of state importance, say a flag or an installation wouldn’t flinch at all. He would remain transfixed, immobile and betraying no sign of life, not even batting an eyelid or a blink of an eye. This rather preternatural degree of discipline would make us, children at the time, dream of becoming in adulthood soldiers or naval ratings or even air-force men. Being as we were at the time deeply influenced and moved by colour and sights, we loved to imitate elders and imagine ourselves becoming members of any profession that caught our fancy.
When in the presence of a priest, for instance, we would love to be priests; when in the presence of a lawyer, we also would desire to be lawyers – that proud cognoscenti of the learned! We didn’t know or even if by some miracle we did, that the hood does not make the monk or the wig the lawyer.
It made no difference to us; it didn’t cut any ice with us. What was of paramount importance to us was the larger-than-life importance of professional sartorial masquerading – the loud arrogance of the attire or the sheer solemn gravitas of the garb. Like it was with our elders during our village festivals, so it was with either priests, members of the armed forces or, of course, lawyers and judges. During our village festival of Akpa in Oligie Igbanke, for example, one of our older siblings or an uncle would participate in donning the mask made of raffia, birches and allied pieces of accoutrement. Having donned the mask in the Enogie palace, surrounded in ritual fashion by elders and members of the cult, that sibling of ours would cease to be an ordinary human being; he would be transformed into a spirit-being, mostly producing what sounded like the guttural gibberish of mmon (ancestral spirit). Only initiates and elders could understand “him”. By nightfall, upon returning from the Evil Forest and re-joining us, ordinary people, he would become again completely human, warts and all.
Same thing for lawyers, in particular. They could be family or friends, or even neighbours. But as soon as they put on their wig and gown, the dress transforms them into some “spirit-beings of the law”. This does not in any fundamental way detract from the many years of rigorous study and research at university as well as the mandatory one-year stint in the Law School, before they are called to Bar. Yet that’s the beginning of the journey into the arcane field of legal practice as solicitors and advocates, inter alia. You also need to set up a law firm or chambers complete with office staff, make court appearances and fight tooth and nail to win cases in courts including the Supreme Court. After several years of practice and having met all the requirements for the position of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), you are conferred the title, that Holy Grail of legal practice in Nigeria. So, briefly, what does it take to be a SAN?
Among others, you must be a lawyer of Nigerian citizenship; you must have a minimum of 10 years of post –call record and you must also possess good character and be of excellent integrity. In an online piece captioned “How to Become a SAN in Nigeria”, Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka informs the readers that the honorary rank/title is conferred on deserving and distinguished legal practitioners in Nigeria. He adds that: “It was first conferred on April 3, 1975 on Chief F.R.A. Williams and Dr Nabo Graham-Douglas. It is equivalent to the rank of Queen’s Counsel in the United Kingdom and tends to admit members into the inner bar as opposed to the usual outer bar where other legal practitioners stay in court. The rank of a SAN is conferred in accordance with section 5 of the legal practitioners’ privileges committee” (July 3, 2022).
However, many people equally hold the belief that, in order to be made a SAN, some of our lawyers go beyond the pale to dabble in some unethical things which constitute part of that eternally amorphous and contentious phrase, “The Nigerian Factor”. Some lawyers could deliberately take on a controversial case not so much because they are strongly persuaded that that is the right course of action as the vain and vainglorious desire to attract the headlines. They would be said to have won a landmark case should they win. This media visibility would give him an additional layer of importance and he could join a political party and acquire a nuisance value to boot. They could join various clubs and societies just so as to be there or thereabouts, the legal prima donnas. And when you add to the mix our obsession with social affiliations such as Old-Boyism, “connections”, ethno-religious ties, closeness to blocs and centres of power, cronyism and, the reigning torch-stone for preferment and patronage, namely IMPUNITY, the award is signed, sealed and delivered. Small wonder you hear phrases like Quota SANs, Nigerian Factor SANs, Political Party SANs, Baby SANs, 419 SANs, etc. being thrown around on social media and in public discourse. The situation is so worrisome that you begin to wonder whether or not we still have amongst us distinguished and exemplary SANs.
Yet, more disturbingly, the recent 2023 elections and their aftermath have brought these unflattering categories of SANs to the fore. There are SANs whose names when mentioned instantaneously evoke disgust or even rage in Nigerians. People dismiss them as quacks, tokunbo, or arrangee SANs. The company they keep, the sides they take in the on-going presidential election petitions tribunal (PEPT) imbroglio also cast them either as anti-or pro- establishment and, therefore, as agents of stasis and atavism. They are seen as sworn enemies of the Common Good. And this is the nub of the matter. The attitude of the SAN to the burning issue of the moment determines whether or not he or she is a good SAN, a people’s SAN. Nigerians at present are outraged and irenic at the rofo rofo fight among SANs to get in on the act, to get a piece of the pie in the current PEPT matter. It was reported that Tinubu, Atiku and Peter Obi have hired 89 SANs for legal battle (Punch 9th March, 2023). The APC has hired 12 SANs; the PDP has hired 19 SANs and, according to the National Secretary of the Labour Party, Umar Farouk,: “We have more than 20 SANs that are willing to participate and offer their services for the renewal and emergence of a new Nigeria […]”. Interestingly, the INEC on its part has also hired 9 SANs to help validate and defend its actions at the 25th February, 2023 presidential election. What’s more, the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar has tasked the 19 SANs to establish the claim of illegality in the February 25 presidential election and reclaim the mandate of the Nigerian people. The team, led by a SAN, J.K. Gadzama, has been tasked to extricate the “electoral heist”, as folk love to call it, from the vice-like grip of the APC, the ruling junta. Continuing, Atiku said that: “It is imperative that they [SANs] work assiduously towards reclaiming the mandate, not necessarily because of his (Atiku) and the PDP, but to strengthen democracy and the electoral process and for generations unborn”.
As far as the INEC goes, people are wondering why it would spend billions of naira to defend what most Nigerians see as a deeply flawed election. They argue that, had the electoral umpire been even-handed, fair and transparent and had not resorted to all kinds of wuru wuru, it would have saved the country all the stress, the palpitations and the global opprobrium it has caused. Besides, it could have saved Nigeria a lot of scarce resources amid our straitened circumstances. The question, therefore, arises: What is it about the facts and figures of the election that have necessitated the engagement of this multitude of SANs? Is our relevant constitutional provisions and clauses regarding election matters so opaque, so convoluted and knotty that it requires SANs to do one another to the death in court? What constitutes the elephant in the room here? Ranged against one another (two elephants fighting, so to speak), will the grass (read: the poor masses) not suffer? Will the Common Good not be the casualty as usual? Yes, it has been said that in the pursuit of truth, the court of law must be the last place to go in search of it. This is because in any adjudication of any sort, the truth is normally the first casualty, the living sacrifice to be offered in the Temple of Justice. Recall the shibboleth in legal circles, which goes thus: “The law is an ass!” This banal universalization of contempt for the energising and authorising rules and regulations, laws and statutes of the land, in fact, the Grundnorm upon which the Rule of Law turns, sadly embosses the principle of social hypocrisy which undergirds the practice of law in Nigeria.
This is why the feeling among lawyers and even judges in Nigeria is that: “This is jamboree time!” Ordinary lawyers whose expertise nobody wants to engage merely gawp and salivate at the luck of their betters – the SANs! Indeed, what a time to be a SAN! To be engaged as one of the senior lawyers to prosecute the all-important, life-and-death PEPT case, the fee is prohibitively humongous, not even a random millionaire can afford the services of a SAN. Only billionaires can. The three presidential contenders are billionaires, possibly in dollars! And, the interesting thing is that, all of them are willing and ready to fork out the fees of hiring multiple SANs! The consternation over the ₦100 million nomination fees for running for the office of president is still very much in the air. Such obscene display of fabulous wealth in the midst of such Biblical poverty and privation? Senator Shehu Sani, in a recent tweet remarked: “The President is living [leaving] behind 77 trillion naira debt, 133 million poverty stricken people, 25m people at the risk of hunger according to UNICEF, 10m out of school children, mass killings and kidnapping on a daily basis; yet he said he has delivered on the change he promised.” Perhaps we should add that Nigeria is deploying about 96% of its revenue to service its loans and debts. Nigeria as a “broke country” at present relies on a policy of borrow-and-squander just because it has chosen to pay lip service to production but institutionalise consumption.
The SANs, truth be told, are doing their job, but in doing so, should they not equally bother about the ethical dimension of their activities? SANs who promote injustice, can they be said to possess “good character and of excellent integrity”? Tome upon tome of jurisprudential hair-splitting can be written on this as value-laden categories such as “character” and “integrity” naturally divides opinion. Again, we should ask: What is the overarching underlying rationale for doing this job? Is it for the pursuit of the public good or for pecuniary interest in these seasons of windfalls? How many SANs can walk away from a case that has injustice and oppression written all over it? If after collecting their millions of naira as service charges and helping in aiding and abetting gross and disastrous miscarriage of justice, then what? How will they enjoy their share of the pie whilst the polity roils and reels in crises? What kind of society are they bequeathing posterity? As Nigerians watch and wait in bated breath whilst the PEPT drama unfolds, we can only hope and pray that the pendulum swings to the side of justice.
Chris Anyokwu, PhD, a dramatist, poet, fiction writer, speaker, rights activist and public intellectual, is a Professor of English at the University of Lagos, Nigeria